The Conversation

5 ways the world is better off dealing with a pandemic now than in 1918

Written by Siddharth Chandra, Professor, James Madison College and Director, Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University

Emergency hospital during influenza epidemic at Camp Funston in Kansas around 1918. National Museum of Health and Medicine

Near the end of the First World War, a deadly flu raced across the globe. The influenza pandemic became the most severe pandemic in recent history, infecting about one-third of the world’s population between 1918 and 1920...

Holding on and holding still, a son photographs his father with Alzheimer's

Written by Nick Lehr, Arts + Culture Editor

'With Dad,' Marlborough, Massachusetts, Oct. 29, 1998.Stephen DiRado, Author provided

In 1985, when Stephen DiRado was just a few years out of college, he bought his first large-format, 8x10 camera. Since each exposure cost eight bucks in today’s dollars, the process required contemplation; he couldn’t simply snap 100 images and pick...

Python skin jackets and elephant leather boots: How wealthy Western nations help drive the global wildlife trade

Written by Maria Ivanova, Associate Professor of Global Governance and Director, Center for Governance and Sustainability, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston

Protesters hold signs outside women's fashion designer Eudon Choi in London during Fashion Week in 2017.Elena Rostenova/www.shutterstock.com

Three-quarters of new and emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in wildlife. COVID-19, SARS and Ebola all started this way. The COVID-19 global pandemic has drawn new attention to how people think...

We caught bacteria from the most pristine air on earth to help solve a climate modeling mystery

Written by Kathryn Moore, PhD student in Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

Not all clouds are the same, and climate models have been predicting the wrong kinds of clouds over the Southern Ocean. Kathryn Moore, CC BY-ND

The Southern Ocean is a vast band of open water that encircles the entire planet between Antarctica and the Southern Hemisphere landmasses. It is the cloudiest place on Earth, and the amount of sunlight...

National survey shows that social service nonprofits are trying to help more people on smaller budgets as the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn unfold

Written by Mirae Kim, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, Georgia State University

Volunteers distributing food in Valley Stream, New York.AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

A recent national survey we conducted shows that social service nonprofits are estimating on average that over the next six months, their revenue will decline by between 19.3% and 37.3%.

They...

Supreme Court ruling on Dreamers sends a clear message to the White House: You have to tell the truth

Written by Morgan Marietta, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Protesters celebrate the Supreme Court ruling.AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

When it came down to it, the fate of 700,000 immigrants brought to U.S. as children hung on a simple question: Does the White House have to tell the whole truth in justifying its move to deport them?

On June 18, the Supreme Court said “yes.”

In a 5-to-4 decision that...

Domestic abusers use tech that connects as a weapon during coronavirus lockdowns

Written by Alison J. Marganski, Associate Professor & Director of Criminology, Le Moyne College

Technology plays a major role in violence against women and girls.AntonioGuillem/iStock via Getty Images

The coronavirus pandemic has driven much of daily life – work, school, socializing – online. Unfortunately, perpetrators of violence against women and girls are also increasingly turning to technology in response to the pandemic.

Globa...

What do struggling small businesses need most? Time – and bankruptcy can provide it

Written by Brook Gotberg, Associate Professor of Law, University of Missouri-Columbia

For some small businesses, temporary will become permanent.AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

The coronavirus pandemic and lockdown forced nearly a third of all small businesses in the United States to close. Some have shut down for good – one estimate puts the percentage at almost 2%, or over 100,000 so far.

Those that remain and are gradually...

Living near active oil and gas wells in California tied to low birth weight and smaller babies

Written by Rachel Morello-Frosch, Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management & School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

A pump jack in the town of Signal Hill, California, which sits within the Long Beach Oil Field near the Port of Long Beach. Frederick J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

In a California study, we found that pregnant women living near active high-production oil and gas wells...

Land loss has plagued black America since emancipation – is it time to look again at 'black commons' and collective ownership?

Written by Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University

Former slaves harvesting for their own profit.Corbis via Getty Images

Underlying the recent unrest sweeping U.S. cities over police brutality is a fundamental inequity in wealth, land and power that has circumscribed black lives since the end of slavery in the U.S.

The “40 acres and a mule” promised to formerly enslaved Africans never...